So there I was with our agent. He was negotiating a rent review of one of our properties. The other party, let’s call him John, was sitting on the other side with his legal team. You’d think that something like this could be handled in an efficient and a businesslike manner. You could even imagine that his legal team could advise him on how far to go. You’d be wrong.
We’re dealing with them in the negotiations and things appear to be going well, then we start talking hard numbers… Eyes lock across the table. John looks up and starts screaming at us accusing us of price gouging, being bandits and he’s going to sue us. All negotiations go out of the window. He storms off…
A week or two later I receive notification from our agent that he received many letters from John. They’re all abusive, quite rude too, it’s pissed our agent off. He says to me “Fuck this forget our offer, I’m going to push up the price an extra 20%, we can take this to arbitration and get it.” I smile to myself, mostly because the week before the arrival of the letters I get a call from “John” and he’s screaming and shouting at me. He even comes to find me and threatens me face to face. I stared him in the eye and told him to stand down before I’d defend myself physically, he jumped back in fear. It’s a strange feeling when you actually see fear in someones eyes. Very very enjoyable infact…
Last night I get a call from an accountant for the firm “John” “owns” let’s call them “Acme” he tells me he’s sorry, he apologises to me. He begs for forgiveness and understanding, he says “John” doesn’t own anything, he’s just working for them he doesn’t even know who the guy is really and why he’d be calling himself one of the owners, they’ve just realised that if we go to arbitration we’ll get even more money than we originally asked for. Significantly more infact. I’ve never had a complete stranger beg infront of me before. It’s fun. I wonder what I can do to get this “John” fired. Lesson of the day people, business is both fun and profitable.
P.S. Don’t hurl abuse at your landlords when things go wrong. Especially if they’ve been friendly and helpful
P.P.S. Especially when you need them a hell of a lot more than they need you.